Design Temperatures for Flexible Airfield Pavement Design.

摘要

The mechanistic approach to flexible pavement design recognizes 2 forms of traffic induced structural damage, one being fatigue failure by cracking in the asphalt layer, the other being permanent deformation. The criterion used for ensuring that the pavement does not fail prematurely due to fatigue in the asphalt is based upon tensile strain. It has been shown that the tensile strain due to aircraft loading has a maximum value at the bottom of the asphalt layer, and it is at this depth that the strain is calculated. The position of the maximum strain relative to the aircraft wheels is dependent upon the aircraft gear configuration, the pavement thickness and stiffness, but is readily determined. Extensive laboratory fatigue tests, combined with full scale trials have permitted the development of a fatigue criterion based on a limiting strain value, so that pavements can be designed to give satisfactory performance. (sdw)